Bread and Circuses

[LOT64 at aol.com]

In a message dated 96-08-02 15:28:33 EDT, Rich writes:

<< I'm also interested about the Olympics and coverage of the Olympics.  I 
 just can't stand it  anymore.  Can that many people be so fucking stupid? 
  >>

Thought you might enjoy this take on the above:

Comments From Nelson Thall.
(Nelson Thall is the Director of Research for the
Center, and former assistant to Dr. McLuhan, former
Chief McLuhan Archivist for the University of Toronto,
and former president of the Marshall McLuhan Center for
Global Communications.)

*The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The ruling class just rules the masses
through pageantry and illusion -- witness the
Olympics in Atlanta 1996 and the so-called
"Information Superhighway". Television is the
means of disseminating and creating this
electronic state of entertainment. The people
who are backstage are, by definition, not
part of the "electro-peasantry" -- rather
they are the techno-lords and electro-dukes
of a new feudal age. We have reached the end
of an epoch, and all the axioms associated
with it -- the ad-nauseam opinions and
re-opinions -- are being swept away. The
Artist caught inside Civilization feels the
pressure and is demoralized by it --- because
he is holding on tight to his
"civilizational" identity. It is, after all,
the work of the Artist to reinterpret the
world, but since the Civilized Artist cannot
understand this new world, he has chosen to
perish with the old. The danger is that we
may perish with him.